Specific diagnosis for effective treatment of neuroblastomas and pulmonary neuroendocrine tumors through transcriptional profiling-based interpretation of cellular development

Induction of tumor differentiation through manipulation of regulatory genes is a relatively unexplored area of cancer therapy, however, it might suggest and additional approach for tumour-specific treatment. Therefore, in view of this idea, the present study hypothesized that neuroblastomas (NBs) and pulmonary neuroendocrine tumors (NETs), which are neoplasms of neural origin, are molecularly different based on their expression of regulatory genes and that exposure to extrinsic factors will alter their growth potential. Using reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) analysis, the present study compared the expression of about 50 regulatory genes that are expressed at early stages of neurogenesis in five human NBs and NETs, also upon GDNF/TGF-β1 and retinoic acid (RA) treatment. According to our results, individual NBs and NETs reflected a certain stage of neural development characterized by their expression of discrete sets of regulatory genes.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Department of Human Biology

Year dc:date.issued

2002

Author dc:creator

• Smit, Marithea

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Neuman, Toomas

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/3203

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/3203